The Hungering

The most infamous plague created by the Blightbringer It is known as the Hungering or the Slavering Sickness as it makes the victim hungry, which does not seem like that big of an issue, to begin with. However, as time goes on their hunger only grows, and should someone or multiple people in a town are infected/cursed by the plague, they will eat their food stores rapidly, then over hunt, steal, and eventually kill their neighbor for food creating zombies that further plague the town. Eventually, only the cannibals remain. It is a gruesome process and can be hard to identify on its onset early enough to contain.
Once the first zombies start arising it causes even more problems for the town as now the dead rise against them while their food stores are depleted.

Transmission & Vectors

The Hungering is thought to be transmitted by infected food, such as grain or meat, but it is not a naturally occurring sickness and one of the Blightbringer's followers must inflict the sickness on the food in the first place.

Causes

Created by the Blightbringer to spread misery and death while also creating undead to further their own agenda.

Symptoms

The early symptom is a dramatically increased hunger, that hunger can be sated early on but eventually, food will stop satisfying them. Without a cure at this point, there are two fates, they eat themselves to death and arise as zombies or they start to seek out other foods to sate the hunger, eventually turning to cannibalism which finally appeases their hunger, briefly. This turns the afflicted into ghouls and their victims into zombies.

Treatment

If caught early enough a cure disease effect is the ideal cure, but should the original infected turn into ghouls there is no cure only death. Any survivors are watched very carefully in quarantine for signs of the Hungering, a problem that arises is those that survive are often hungry because the infected consumed the food of the village.
In the current age, there is no other known cure as it is created by a god, so it must be cured by one. There are legends that in ages past a cure did exist that did not rely on the gods but that knowledge along with many other things is now lost to time.

Prognosis

The likely course of this condition is the infected becoming ghouls that will give rise to zombies, which will create more zombies.

Sequela

This can go one of two ways, someone cured can either have a considerably lessened appetite or a heightened one, not to the point of killing themselves by overeating, but they will always seem hungry.

Prevention

Proper blessing of food stores has been effective at destroying infected grain that makes its way into silos, or meat being prepared is often salted with 'holy salt' blessed by any number of priests.

Cultural Reception

The Hungering is a greatly feared condition and has caused more than a few stake burnings of the supposedly infected, and entire grain houses to be burned to the ground.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Divine

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare